Men’s – Irrational Approach. JW Anderson SS25

“Irrational clothing” is how Jonathan Anderson described the idea(s) behind his JW Anderson spring-summer 2025 collection. The sheer number of concepts the designer played with on his runway is a lot to take, especially at menswear Milan Fashion Week where most designers barely deliver one, substantial idea. The wearable collage of adjacently sourced thoughts all set on designing garments that aggravated and stimulated the outer reaches of familiarity. Liner jackets in lushly colored silk and hula-hoop-hemmed, billows-pocketed denim gilets were both delivered in steroid-shot proportions to transform them beyond their conventional categories. “Sometimes it’s about movement and sponginess and being tactile,” offered Anderson of the three inside-out knit mega bomber jackets that followed. Pastel leather supersized blouses that followed a few looks later just looked so delightfully squishy. But there was also a sense of utilitarian toughness, some sort of exaggerated mannishness rooted in historicism. Take the pants in the closing look, musketeer-ishly tucked into vintage military-style boots unlaced up from the shin. Anderson’s disruptively irrational approach to worn façades became even more evident in a series of three two-story cardigans and two taller shifts knit with purposefully homespun craftiness to resemble various English architectural styles. The designer also proposed a not-so-discreet return to the tie in menswear, in XXL sizes, creating a cartoonish caricature of a businessman’s attire. Shirts, jackets, and a coat were affixed with roundly folded supersized silk tags in harlequin colors that resembled deflated balloons. They were lovely and strange. And then, in a very JW manner, another random element that will be a hit: the sweats and knits featuring vintage Guinness advertising. The designer said this was partially because he is Northern Irish and a fan of Guinness and partially because he has always relished that non-fashion brand’s history of radical image making, from the vintage pieces showcased here to Jonathan Glazer’s 1999 surfer advertisement. Now I wonder which of these concepts will reappear – even subtly – in Anderson’s forthcoming collaboration on costumes for Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” starring Daniel Craig, premiering this August in Venice.